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My car’s at 99,851 miles. Time for a new car!

We are on our 11th day of our cross-country trip from Alaska to Florida. The drive has been absolutely beautiful. The crisp mountain air, flowing rivers, and abundant wildlife has made this one of our best road trips yet. Sometimes I may worry about where the next gas station is, or when we will be able to stop for lunch, but one thing I’m not worried about is my car.

We are driving our 2011 Honda Odyssey with 99,851 miles. Sure, it’s almost at 100,000 miles, but it drives just like a brand new vehicle. Before we left, we had a full inspection done, and changed the oil. Everything looked great for our long road trip ahead. I’m not quite sure why people seem to believe that a car somehow magically becomes dangerous and unsafe when it hits this certain 100,000-mile threshold. There’s this idea that cars become worthless at this point, and it’s time to get a new car. The truth is, as long as you perform regular maintenance, your car can last way past this point.

Cars are made a lot better than they were in the past, and 100,000-miles is not a death sentence for your vehicle. There are many cars that reach 200,000-miles, 400,000-miles, or even 500,000-miles. If your car hasn’t given you any trouble, there’s no need to upgrade just because you’ve hit some arbitrary number. I’ve heard so many excuses to buy a new car, and most have to do with safety. I think we try to convince ourselves that it’s in the name of safety, so that we can justify the purchase. In reality, most of the time it’s just a want disguised as a need, and the truth is, we just want a shiny new car. If you just want a shiny new car with a shiny new car payment, that’s fine, but don’t kid yourself into believing that it’s all for the sake of safety.

We plan to drive our van another 100,000 miles as long as it doesn’t give us any problems. Cars are one of the most expensive purchases we make, besides a house. There’s no need to buy more cars than we have to. Buying a car every 4-6 years is one of the biggest financial mistakes people make. Perform regular maintenance, and see how long your car will last. Besides, my son has already spilled an entire bottle of apple juice, and things got pretty messy with his ice cream bar today. Another reason why I have no plans of upgrading my vehicle anytime soon.

4 thoughts on “My car’s at 99,851 miles. Time for a new car!”

LOL! Agreed! We have also heard of brand new vehicles with mechanical issues at 10,000 or 20,000 miles. My very first car was a 1999 chevy cavalier bought in 2000 with 17k miles. I did regular maintenance, drove it across the country 5 times, and my parents are still driving this car in 2017 with 105,000 miles. My 2007 Toyota Rav4 has driven around this country more times than I can remember in the 4 years I have owned it, we are at 118,700 miles (50k more than when I bought it) and going great! We bought a junker 2004 Honda Civic in 2014 to save on gas (husband’s old daily driver was a Dodge Ram and filling the gas tank was over $100 each time) and the civic now has 130k miles on it. The money we saved on gas alone made the purchase worth it, and like you said…it doesn’t bother us as much if the civic gets beats up or spilled in! We expect the civic to last another 3 years so that we can teach our son to drive in it!

That’s awesome that you guys swapped out your truck for a civic. I drove a civic in college. It had 188,000 miles when I sold it, and I never had any issues with it. It was a great car. We have a Prius for commutes, and it’s been great so far. I really don’t think you can go wrong with Toyota and Honda. We plan on passing the Prius down to our daughter too. I have no doubt that it will last many more years for her.